Women Candidates and Judicial Elections: Telling an Untold Story

Reid, Traciel V.

doi:10.1017/s1743923x10000267

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…To date, most gender‐related studies of judicial elections, primarily at the state supreme court and appellate levels, have been “end‐stage” assessments rather than inclusive of all stages of the electoral process (Reid, :467) as is common in the study of legislative elections. Ondercin and Welch (:593), who study women's successes in getting elected to Congress, remind us of “the obvious, but rarely explored, fact that women's election success is a product of three key stages of the election process: women running, women's successes in the primaries, and finally, women's general election successes.” It is not enough to simply track won/lost records to get a complete picture of how women compete for elective judgeships (Reid, :471).…”

Section: Different Paths To Victorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gathering data on trial court judges is considerably more difficult than constructing data sets on the composition of state supreme courts or appellate courts. As noted by Matthew Streb (:6): “If you are studying trial court elections … there are thousands of seats to be filled (although many of these are uncontested) and information about these races is sporadically available; the data that are available are contained in several places.” The small number of women candidates and state judicial system differences are other major challenges to the study of women in trial courts (Reid, :471). In summary, the labor‐intensive nature of generating longitudinal trial‐court‐level databases has led scholars interested in studying judicial elections at the grassroots level to engage in collaborative efforts, often of a comparative case study nature.…”

Section: The Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We adopt Reid's () recommendation to utilize a variety of research approaches (empirical; comparative case study) to assess the electoral successes of women running for trial court judge in nonpartisan settings, using an “all‐stage” approach. Data for the study are (1) the universe of contested major trial court races in two large states with nonpartisan judicial elections (Florida and Georgia) from 2006 to 2008 and (2) all gubernatorial appointments to fill new or vacant positions made over the same period .…”

Section: The Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

“Your Honor” is a Female: A Multistage Electoral Analysis of Women's Successes at Securing State Trial Court Judgeships*

Bullock¹,

MacManus

Owen

et al. 2014

Social Science Quarterly

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Objectives. Using a multistage gender-focused analysis of candidates for trial court judgeships, we seek answers to these leading questions: (1) Are women as strategic as men in choosing the conditions under which they run for an open seat or against an incumbent and against a male opponent or against another female? (2) Are women winning at the same rates as men under the same conditions at the primary election stage and at the runoff stage? (3) Are women as likely as men to move into a vacant trial court judgeship via a gubernatorial appointment? (4) Are women more likely to be appointed than to win election to the bench? Methods. This research represents the first use of an "all-stage" analysis of the relative success of female versus male candidates for trial court judge in nonpartisan settings. The three stages analyzed are (1) candidacy, (2) the initial primary round (outright victory or progression to the runoff ), and (3) the end stage-victory in a runoff, if necessary. The study is based on longitudinal data from Florida and Georgia-two of the nation's 10 largest states, each with higher contestation rates than the national average for nonpartisan trial court judicial racesand gubernatorial appointments to new or vacant judgeships. Results. Women behave strategically, more often seeking open seats than challenging incumbents and more often competing against men than women. Women participated in the candidate pools for most seats having contested primaries and when women run, they win more often than they lose, usually by defeating men. While women fare less well in runoffs than initial primaries, they win more runoffs than they lose. Women more often come to the bench by winning an election than securing a gubernatorial appointment, with female appointees disproportionately serving in newly created judgeships. Conclusions. Women frequently compete for trial court judgeships and when they run, they usually succeed. Open seats rather than challenging incumbents

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Section: Different Paths To Victorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

“Your Honor” is a Female: A Multistage Electoral Analysis of Women's Successes at Securing State Trial Court Judgeships*

Bullock¹,

MacManus

Owen

et al. 2014

Social Science Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Gender may provide such a cue, and voters may use gender as a proxy for the ideology of a candidate (McDermott 1998). However, one of the few studies looking at the fate of women in state supreme court elections finds evidence that women in these races are actually disadvantaged at a number of stages of the process (Reid 2010).…”

Section: Women In Judicial Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Voters Prefer Women Judges? Deconstructing the Competitive Advantage in State Supreme Court Elections

Gill

Eugenis²

2019

State Politics Policy Q.

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Although many people believe that women are disadvantaged by the electoral process, recent research shows women generally do at least as well as men when they run for office. We investigate the gender dynamics of state supreme court elections. We find evidence that women do enjoy an electoral advantage when they run for judicial office. However, unlike previous work, we find that this advantage is highly contingent on the electoral context. Using an original dataset of competitive judicial elections from 1998 to 2014, we find that women only have a significant vote share advantage when they run as a challenger against a sitting incumbent. The advantage does not apply to women as incumbents or in open seat elections. These findings raise important questions about the interplay of institutional barriers and election aversion for the advancement of women in electoral judicial politics.

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“…Pearson and McGhee (2013) argue that women must be more qualified to win House elections at the same rates as men. Similarly, Reid (2010) evaluates a small sample of partisan judicial elections and found that more female candidates had prior judicial experience.…”

Section: Theoretical Foundationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Women Win: Gender and Success in State Supreme Court Elections

Nguyen

2018

American Politics Research

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Although women remain underrepresented in U.S. elective office, female candidates have experienced similar or greater electoral success compared to their male counterparts. Research suggests both selection effects (the uniquely strong characteristics and qualifications of women who run for office) and selective candidacy (the decisions to run or not run for office based on the electoral context) contribute to this phenomenon. I leverage a large data set of candidate characteristics and electoral outcomes in state supreme court elections spanning 1990-2012 to clarify the causal mechanisms behind the electoral success of female candidates. I find that the success of female candidates in state supreme court elections is driven by the most capable women selectively running for open seats. I conclude that this phenomenon may be reflective of a broader gender gap in political ambition, with implications for tactics to improve gender representation in politics.

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Women Candidates and Judicial Elections: Telling an Untold Story

Cited by 5 publications

References 41 publications

“Your Honor” is a Female: A Multistage Electoral Analysis of Women's Successes at Securing State Trial Court Judgeships*

“Your Honor” is a Female: A Multistage Electoral Analysis of Women's Successes at Securing State Trial Court Judgeships*

Do Voters Prefer Women Judges? Deconstructing the Competitive Advantage in State Supreme Court Elections

Why Women Win: Gender and Success in State Supreme Court Elections

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